Chapter 2 - The Ride to Saint Catherine’s
The ambulance doors closed.
The holiday lights outside David’s family home disappeared behind us.
A paramedic named Marisol placed an oxygen mask over my face.
Another attached monitors beneath my maternity dress.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the ambulance.
Fast.
Uneven.
Beautiful and terrifying.
“Stay with me, Anna,” Marisol said.
“Tell me how far along you are.”
“Twenty-nine weeks.”
“Any bleeding?”
“A little.”
“When did the pain begin?”
“After she pushed me.”
Marisol exchanged a look with her partner.
The meaning was clear.
This was no longer only my statement.
My body was becoming evidence.
I tried to focus on breathing.
My father called the ambulance supervisor.
The paramedic placed him through the vehicle speaker.
“I am here,” he said.
His voice no longer sounded like the man television anchors called the most influential judge in the country.
He sounded like the father who used to sit outside my bedroom when thunderstorms frightened me.
“Dad.”
“I am coming.”
“Do not use your position.”
The request came out between contractions.
“I will not.”
“I have contacted your aunt as your attorney.”
“I have also informed the local police that I will not participate in any charging decision.”
Even then, he understood what David would claim.
Influence.
Retaliation.
A powerful judge destroying an ordinary attorney who married his daughter.
My father would give them no such defense.
“You never told him about me,” he said.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I wanted him to love me without the name.”
My father was silent.
The baby’s heartbeat dipped.
Marisol adjusted the oxygen.
“We are five minutes away.”
I closed my eyes.
Memories came without permission.
David meeting me at a courthouse café.
David carrying my books through the rain.
David saying he admired how independent I was.
Then the first time he criticized my dress.
The first time Sylvia told me educated women ruined marriages.
The first time David took my paycheck and called it household discipline.
Every cruelty had arrived wearing the costume of concern.
By the time the costume fell away, I had already learned to apologize for noticing.
“Dad,” I whispered.
“Yes?”
“I should have told you.”
“We will discuss that when you are safe.”
“I stopped answering because David read my messages.”
My father breathed in slowly.
“He told me you were traveling.”
“He said you wanted distance.”
“I thought you were ashamed of my marriage.”
“I was waiting for you to ask me to come.”
Tears slid beneath the oxygen mask.
“I was afraid.”
“I know.”
The ambulance reached Saint Catherine’s Medical Center.
Hospital staff waited outside the emergency entrance.
They rushed me through double doors toward obstetric surgery.
My father remained on the line until a nurse took the phone.
The last thing I heard him say was my childhood nickname.
May you like
“Stay with us, Annie.”
Then the operating-room doors closed.
